The finding stems from two years of tracking 60 severely obese patients with type 2 diabetes who were between the ages of 30 and 60. One-third of the patients were treated with diabetes drugs and diet/lifestyle modifications, while the rest underwent one of two surgical procedures: either Roux-en-Y gastric bypass or biliopancreatic diversion surgery.

The end result: all of the surgical patients were ultimately able to stop taking their diabetes medications, while the vast majority entered into full disease remission; neither outcome occurred in the traditional treatment group.

“We have known for many years that bariatric surgery, and specifically certain types of operations like gastric bypass, are very effective in terms of helping to control diabetes,” noted study senior author Dr Francesco Rubino, chief of gastrointestinal metabolic surgery and director of the Metabolic and Diabetes Surgery Center at New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell in New York City.